Red Tea, Black Tea, Red Tea
by Holydumpling
Summary: Levi only drinks green tea. He doesn't like red tea or black tea, for his own special reasons. (Scene after the failed 57th expedition, when Levi and Eren are waiting for the others. Conversation preceding the snippet that was given in the manga.)


Disclaimer: I don't own SnK although I really wish I did.

Levi only drinks green tea. He doesn't like red tea or black tea, for his own special reasons.

So basically, this is the scene after the failed 57th expedition, when Levi and Eren are waiting for the others. It's the conversation preceding the snippet that was given in the manga.

I'll love you if you leave comments or feedback.  
I'll love you even if you don't, but pretty please?

* * *

They sank into an uncomfortable silence, enjoying the calm before the storm. In actuality, it was also the calm after one hell of a fucking Hurricane Katrina, just nobody would ever dare voice that. Morale was at an all-time low, and proudly flaunting the "nothing" they had gained from the last expedition would only deal the Corps its last devastating blow.

For once, Eren remained quiet, a thoughtful look in his eyes as he surveyed the room. His unspoken vow to silence was a little unnerving, but Levi ignored it even as the brat began to show the telltale signs of anxiety and regret. Honestly, Levi had better things to care about at the moment.

Letting people down felt like shit. Between his exceptional performance and general indifference, this usually wasn't a problem for Levi. Usually.

That being said, he did feel pretty shitty right now.

Eren wasn't making it any better. The brat kept fidgeting in his chair, glancing furtively at Levi, the message he wanted to convey too damn obvious – _I'm sorry_. He seemed to be debating with himself whether speaking those words was necessary. Personally, Levi thought something like that didn't need to be vocalized to be understood, but it wasn't as if he'd break the silence to comfort some sniveling brat. He had his own problems, his own grief and self-pity to wade through. Swim through. No, drown in. And when you're drowning, you don't concern yourself with saving others, not because you don't want to, but simply because you can't.

They remained seated for the most part as they waited for Erwin and the others to arrive, Levi at the end of the table and Eren a few seats away from him. Levi chose to stare angrily at some invisible object in the wall. If he was ever asked, he would have said it was a stain. It was always somewhat amusing to see people balk at his habits and call him a clean freak, particularly when the comments came from those who dug into the food rations without cleaning up the titan blood on their hands first.

He didn't really pay much attention to Eren. From the looks of it, the brat was tracing the lines along his palm, feeling the grooves of his more recent bite-marks with a trembling hand. Poor brat. He needed to learn to cope, and nobody could help him with that. Life lessons, they were called, and Eren had to learn them by himself. People learned such things through experience because they could gain only a limited amount of wisdom from being taught by others. Facing death, and coming to terms with the fact that death was real and ugly and liked to spit in your face, was a firsthand experience.

Hours passed, and Levi started wondering why Erwin was taking so long. Perhaps he was taking a long, sweet dump to get privacy. Hell, that was the sole method the man could use to get privacy nowadays.

Minutes later, Levi started wondering why he was thinking about Erwin and shit. The two words didn't really belong in the same sentence, and it wasn't very appropriate of him. Still, it was better than brooding over the events that had occurred. It was better than closing his eyes and seeing the faces of the dead, seeing the fear, seeing the venomous shade of red.

Levi was literate, so he'd read enough books to get the impression that death was often glorified. They said that the dead came back to watch over those they had left behind, smiles on their faces sweet and sad. They were supposed to have the purity of angels, wings of sheer white fanned out as majestically as did their robes, unbloodied and unsullied and lacking the filth characteristic of humans.

That was a far cry from what Levi saw. His reality was a waking nightmare, and his dreams were all blood-stained mirrors of reality. The dead did come back to smile at him. But they reached out to drag him down, wailing in high-pitched screams and snickering cruelly at his uselessness. They came back to haunt him, still missing limbs and bent in grotesque combinations of joints and fleshy wounds.

Not that he would ever tell anybody.

He glanced over at Eren, noticing that the brat had taken to pacing back and forth across the room. His steps were strict and small, reminiscent of the marches they were required to practice every now and then. Hands clasped behind his back, the boy mumbled unintelligible somethings to himself. It sounded like he was counting sheep, and it was extremely distracting. Levi would have liked it for that if it hadn't been extremely annoying as well.

"Jaeger, get back into your fucking chair. Stay still and stay put," Levi barked, never deigning Eren so much as a glance. The wall deserved it more than the brat, sometimes.

Eren jumped into his seat so quickly that he nearly tripped over himself in a tangle of legs, both his own and the chair's. Levi felt mildly sorry for the brat, so he added, "You'd think that your ass wasn't rounded. Perhaps I should tell Hanji to take a note on that. Remind me."

Eren's eyes lit up at that, and he made a strangled sound that was a cross between a nervous giggle and a relieved laugh. How manly. The brat opened his mouth to say something, apparently thought better of it, and shut up before he could say something stupid.

So Levi continued his staring contest with the wall. He hadn't been counting the minutes, so he didn't know how long it had been when Eren finally spoke up.

"Corporal, was that a, uh, joke?"

"No, it wasn't." Levi refrained from rolling his eyes. He never rolled his eyes. "Titans have sharp asses. Hanji could use that."

"Huh? Wait, what? Really?"

"Really," Levi deadpanned as he caught Eren's horrified look. For a moment, he thought that the brat was really _just that fucking stupid_ until he saw a playful glint in the brat's expressive green eyes. God.

Well, he could do this, too. Humor was an effective way to get rid of accumulated stress. That was probably the only reason why Levi participated in making his fair share of shit jokes, indulging in a sarcastic grim good humor at most. Soldiers made shit jokes like there was no tomorrow. And death jokes. Those were pretty common, too, especially in the Survey Corps, where recruits died like flies being viciously swatted at, both literally and figuratively.

Eren grinned, and Levi rewarded him with a reluctant smile.

"No offense, sir, but when you force a smile it sorta kinda looks like your face muscles are having a seizure," Eren told him, in a tone that people adopted when discussing the weather.

"I know. Handsome, if I do say so myself."

"Ah, I don't know, maybe if you smiled the other way."

"What, like you brats do while using your maneuver gear?"

"Huh?"

"Like when your mouths are wide open. You actually swallow a shit ton of air and microscopic bugs. Don't get me started on the dirt."

"I see," Eren replied, attempting to look as if he were seriously considering what Levi had just said. He made a move to stroke his nonexistent beard in contemplation.

They lapsed back into a silence, this time a great deal more comfortable than the first one. Eren, from watching Levi, seemed to have decided that wall-staring was quite fun, so they both stared at walls with a ridiculous amount of dedication, before Eren began his trademark complaining.

"My eyes are starting to see all this peachy color from staring. How do you even do that?"

Levi gave the brat an intimidating glare, almost as if sizing him up. "At least you aren't seeing red."

"Corporal?"

"Shut up."

"Red?"

"Shut up."

"I see red. I mean, I'm not colorblind or anything. I think. I d-" Eren stopped, even though he hadn't been interrupted. Not by Levi's voice, anyway.

A great, awkward silence settled into a room. Holding his cup up, Levi sipped the tea delicately.

"Hey, can I see that? Your cup?" Eren demanded more than asked.

"No. Your filthy hands have filthy germs."

"I washed them."

"Soap?"

"Uh," Eren said pathetically.

"You people never use soap, that's disgusting as fuck. At least that means I have more for myself though. It's better the useful things go to those who actually appreciate them," Levi muttered dangerously. "I should ask Erwin to adjust the budget, get more mopping solutions and polishing agents. Since you people go through that stuff so quickly. You shitstains aren't using that for lube or something, are you? I understand some of you have horny, masochistic tendencies, but that's really going too far. Stay away from my cleaning supplies, goddammit. I'm getting a lock someday."

"Corporal?" Eren asked softly. His voice was tentative and hesitant, his gaze far off. He didn't even blanch at Levi's accusations, so it was safe to assume something else was on his mind.

"What."

"Your tea is green."

"Of course it is."

"Well…it's _green_."

"Green tea _is_ green. Use your brain, Jaeger. Sometimes it seems like you don't fucking have one.

"I do have one."

"Then you don't know how to use it, do you."

"Black tea is nice, too," Eren pressed on, watching Levi closely, "And red tea. Have you tried them before?"

Levi watched him back, suspiciously. "I hate black tea. And I hate red tea."

That effectively killed what was left of the conversation, and Eren shut up for good. It was godsend, but now the room was too quiet for Levi's liking. Bloody screams echoed in his ear, and he couldn't scream back.

Eren asked something, curiosity causing him to rephrase his question when Levi didn't answer the first time around. "Is it red? The color? Blood, isn't it? And black is, uh, death?" He looked towards Levi, waiting for the approval that Levi was tempted to hold back.

"Yeah," Levi admitted. He was honest – blatantly so – and he wasn't really one for words.

"Oh," came the reply. "Didn't know you were sentimental like that."

"It's not from being sentimental. It comes from not being completely broken. If I were you, I'd question the sanity of soldiers. Hell, anyone who faces those _things_ on a daily basis has issues."

"You see them too?" Eren asked. His question ended on a low note, making it sound more like a statement. "Even outside of missions, in your dreams and everything? Right when you wake up and the titans and dead and everything just randomly pop out of nowhere when they're not actually there? I thought-"

"Kid, I'm not invincible. Don't believe that humanity's greatest weapon crap. If I were that great, if I had the strength, we wouldn't be here right now." Levi looked away. He wasn't ashamed exactly. He was more disappointed, feeling shitty and all, than ashamed. "We wouldn't be here waiting for them. Erwin and his motherfuckers sure are late." The brat didn't say anything, so after a sip of his _green_ tea, which Eren had so pleasantly pointed out, Levi continued, "The bastards, making me wait. At this rate the military police is going to get here first."

The brat still didn't say anything. Levi looked at him, and Eren diligently returned the stare. Guess another try at humor wouldn't hurt. "Maybe he's agonizing somewhere over being constipated or something." That earned him a laugh from Eren, and Levi took another sip of tea. He'd have to get up and pour another cup soon at this rate.

"Corporal, today," Eren began, "You're kind of talkative."

"Don't be stupid. I always talk my share."

"I'm really sorry," Eren blurted out suddenly. He talked to the wall, never once looking Levi in the eyes. Here was someone who ashamed more than disappointed. "I'm really sorry. If only at that time I hadn't made the wrong choice. Things would have been different. You wouldn't have gotten wounded, and," he paused, aiming for the right words. Levi thought it wasn't necessary, since he'd already said the two most important ones: _I'm sorry_.

Still, as much as Levi sympathized with Eren, he didn't want to continue on this path of conversation. It wasn't his responsibility to give _the talk_ to Eren, just like it hadn't been his responsibility to explain to Petra's father _the news_. Even if Levi was willing to, he wasn't a good talker, couldn't be counted on to glorify their mission with pretty words, or to impart any wisdom other than "don't you dare fucking die." He had seen hell more times than he could count, and had made it back alive the same number of times. It wasn't something to be proud of. Sure, if Erwin needed him to impress the military police swine and potential recruits, he'd whip out his maneuver gear and gracefully stick a couple of blades up some goddamn titan ass, but make speeches was something he would never do. That was what Erwin did. Levi couldn't make speeches, and he wasn't suited to saying those sorts of things in the first place.

He quickly scanned Eren's face, deciding on whether to say what Eren wanted to hear or what he expected to hear. "I told you, didn't I? No one knows how their choice will turn out."

The world worked that way: people made the choices they made because of the experiences they had. A person's experiences decided his actions. So nothing could change the decision he made in the end.

Eren would have to understand that. He eventually would, if he survived through all this first.

* * *

There are probably eragvndfkj;asl fics out there about something like this, but this is my interpretation of it.

I hope this was humorous. Sorry if I have a sick sense of humor. Sorry not sorry.

I guess I didn't manage to post this on Thanksgiving since it's 1:16 AM.  
For Thanksgiving, I told my friends I was thankful that Levi existed. And that there was a LOT of ereri fics out there.  
They laughed. And then when they realized I was actually being serious, they laughed some more.

COMMMENTS PLEASE!

I'll stop rambling now.


End file.
